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Firefox has an issue that’s been open for 20 years regarding implementing the XDG Base Directory Specification.
Firefox is the biggest offender for me. ~/.mozilla instead of something sane like ~/.config/firefox
Even worse, Thunderbird doesn’t save data in ~/.mozilla/thunderbird, but in ~/.thunderbird.
If plasma could put all their damn files inside a “plasma” folder that’d be great too.
my favourite part is Steam throwing in a symlink, a broken symlink, and a directory of 4 files and 7 more symlinks that all point to a more reasonable point in
~/.local/share/steam/lol that’s great. Does flatpak Steam do that too? I can’t see anything from Steam directly in my home directory, and I use the flatpak version.
Flatpak itself violates the xdg base dir spec by making ~/.var
I love you all very much but just please be aware that “the floor” is literally where the files are supposed to go, according to the spec. I don’t like it, you don’t like it, nobody likes it. But that’s why it’s happening.
Relevant section quoted for the lazy:
User specific configuration files for applications are stored in the user’s home directory in a file that starts with the ‘.’ character (a “dot file”). If an application needs to create more than one dot file then they should be placed in a subdirectory with a name starting with a ‘.’ character, (a “dot directory”). In this case the configuration files should not start with the ‘.’ character.
Set your config directory to be your home directory and outplay those apps
It’s one thing when they have legacy hardcode mountains preventing a standardisation, but I really dislike developers who just disagree with the standard and take away the choice as well and justify it with some made up problems with that standard.
https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/864
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735285
etc…
Archlinux Wiki even has an article about those.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory#Hardcoded
who would win?
dozens of conflicting standards on where to store files over years of poorly enforced linux development practice
vs
some symlink bois
for real tho, I discovered gnu-stow the other day and it looks like the ideal solution for this sorta stuff
Firefox asks me where to put my files though.
It’s about config files, not downloads
